Ward B4 is a backwater of an NHS hospital – a depository for dying and discombobulated geriatric women. Beset by C. diff, form-filling and self-obsessed consultants, the minimal staff struggle with the daily grind – blithely enduring the absurd hurdles and obstacles of the system and getting through each day on cake and cigarettes. Sister Flixter is in charge of the ward, but drowning in paperwork, neuroses and relationship issues, she relies on the graft and common sense of return-to-practice nurse Kim Wilde, the lowest form of life on the ward – after the lino. The patients, of course, are the least of their problems, especially compared to the jargon-fueled, stool-obsessed, ward doctor, Pippa Moore, and a new male matron who is determined to do things by the book.